Public Works Shoring Up Rio Hillsides are Performed Without Bids or Contracts

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rio’s City Hall is carrying out nearly forty landslide prevention works without bidding, contract or registration in the Federal Gazette.

Among the works is the shoring up of the hillsides above Avenida Niemeyer — affected by the storms that hit Rio this year — and many other construction jobs, as demonstrated in an exclusive report from RJ2 news site by Bruno Sponchiado, Diogo Dias and Chico Regueira.

In severe emergency circumstances, works may be commissioned without bidding. However, the public procedure needs to be clear and transparent; this is not what the city government of Rio has been doing.

RJ2 had access to a Geo-Rio spreadsheet showing that the municipality is conducting 38 landslide prevention jobs. Sources confirmed to RJ2 that the spreadsheet is used to monitor works that could be considered illegal, should they not be in plain sight.

These 38 hillside works, five of them on Avenida Niemeyer, have an estimated cost over R$90 (US$24) million, without contracts or publication in the Municipal Gazette.

“Public administration is not allowed to undertake any work without publicizing it, without communicating it to society. Society must control the actions of the administration. This type of situation directly infringes both the Constitution’s Article 37, as well as the law of governance, the government bids law,” explains Adriano Barcellos, a lawyer and public law expert at University PUC in Rio.

RJ2 searched the names of construction companies included in the Geo-Rio worksheet in the Federal Gazette search system for the City Hall. From January 31st to this Thursday, July 18th, no publications were found concerning the works included in the spreadsheet.

The team also checked SICOP, the single protocol control system, which monitors all of the city’s construction procedures and records. All records found in the spreadsheet have been searched. In the vast majority of cases, the following messages were found: “request for permission to carry out emergency works” or “request for expenditure for the execution of the work”.

The messages suggest that the works do not yet enjoy official permits or payment releases.

In a note, the City Hall states that all contracts, permits for technical liability and other details are under preparation and will soon be published in the Municipal Gazette. In other words, it confirms that the emergency works are not even under contract.

Five months have passed since the February rainfall. The city government further said that, due to their urgency, the works do not require a bidding process, but they have undergone soil studies, topography, and evaluations.

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